Many businesses have a backlog of documents and have to close

Following the concern of many National Assembly deputies about fire prevention and fighting regulations that cause more difficulties and problems for people and businesses, National Assembly delegate Nguyen Thi Nhu Y (Dong Nai) reflected to the National Assembly the opinions of businesses recorded at the Meeting with FDI enterprises in Dong Nai province in March 3 on this issue.

 Delegates of the National Assembly at the session.

Many businesses are facing difficulties, stopping operations, closing after new regulations on standards and criteria for fire prevention and fighting were issued and took effect.

Businesses said that many new regulations on fire prevention and fighting exceed the developed country and have not considered the feasibility when applied in Vietnam. Many projects invested under the old plan, ensuring the provisions of Decree No. 97/2014/ND-CP, now require appraisal to comply with the new regulations issued in Decree No. 136/2020/ND-CP.

Delegate Nguyen Thi Nhu Y said that this creates many problems, increases time, increases compliance costs, many new standards and regulations on fire prevention and fighting have been issued that cannot distinguish the project scale, construction properties, regulations requiring the use of fireproof materials such as paints and fireproof mortars that have not been licensed in the Vietnamese market. Because of the failure to accept the new construction, thousands of businesses and business establishments will have to close.

Delegate Nguyen Thi Nhu Y cited data from the Department of Science, Technology and Environment of the Ministry of Construction, since Regulation 06 took effect from January 16, 1 to April, it has been about 2023 months, but no works have been put into operation.

 Delegate Nguyen Thi Nhu Y spoke about fire prevention and fighting regulations that cause difficulties for businesses.

Also related to this content, National Assembly delegate Nguyen Hoang Bao Tran (Binh Duong) said, many businesses reflect the backlog of many dossiers of application for fire prevention and fighting approval and construction, which have not been tested and accepted to put into operation for businesses because they are not eligible to meet the new regulations, due to the lack of synchronization in the implementation guidelines between functional sectors. 

Meanwhile, an approved dossier on fire prevention and fighting is one of the mandatory legal requirements for foreign partners to consider and evaluate the capacity of enterprises before signing an order contract. 

According to delegate Nguyen Hoang Bao Tran, currently many businesses have submitted their application for approval for many months but have not yet been approved. This greatly affects the production and business activities of enterprises, and at the same time, directly affects the jobs, incomes and lives of workers when enterprises cannot sign orders.

Minister of Public Security at the meeting. 

Regulations and standards for fire prevention and fighting must be feasible

It is necessary to promulgate regulations, norms, standards and criteria to establish discipline and discipline principles in social management. Affirming such views, the delegates also suggested that it is necessary to study the feasibility of regulations and standards when applied in practice.

In order for the legitimate reflections and recommendations of the people and businesses to be resolved with creative and practical solutions, coming to life, delegate Nguyen Thi Nhu Y suggested considering the appropriate time to apply the new fire prevention and fighting standards, having a step-by-step roadmap for the society to adapt, not applying the regulations immediately when the conditions are not ready.

National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue chaired the meeting. 

Along with that, when adjusting regulations, it is necessary to take into account the feasibility and compliance costs of people and businesses. If the regulations are set too high, sometimes the compliance costs are greater than the benefits obtained from reducing fire and explosion. There should be transitional regulations for construction investment projects that have been decided to invest before the effective date of the new regulation, only bound by law at the time of approval of the work construction investment project.

Delegates also suggested that the classification of industries to apply the standard of industries with high fire risk must be regulated to invest in fire prevention and fighting very well. Most of the conclusions that cause fire and explosion are electrical short-circuits, so it is recommended to soon develop and issue safety standards for designing and setting up electrical systems in civil and industrial electricity.

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